Substack Unlocks Data Superpowers with Delphina AI

The data challenge at Substack: high demand for ad-hoc analytics

Substack is a digital publishing platform and new media app where creators, writers, and podcasters share their work and earn directly from their audience through subscriptions. The platform has grown to more than tens of millions active subscribers, and more than 5 million paid subscriptions.

Kevin Franklin leads analytics at Substack, supporting company-wide insights for a highly data-centric organization. Kevin fields constant ad-hoc requests for data needs and strategic insights across customer support, product research, partnerships, executives, and nearly every other arm of the company. High-priority requests were addressed quickly, but as demand for data grew across the organization, the team saw an opportunity to implement a more scalable approach.

Kevin was introduced to Delphina's AI-native data platform through a mutual connection. He became an early adopter — first as a solo user, then carefully expanding to a small group so he could monitor questions and guide the system's learning. By seeding Delphina's context layer with high-quality query history, relevant data pipeline code, dashboard KPIs, then refining through easy Slack corrections, accuracy quickly climbed to 95%+.

Kevin's team deployed Delphina to key users across Substack's business teams, making data more accessible and actionable across the organization.

Transformation 1: Self-service data without sacrificing governance

"With previous tools, I had no idea what people were asking or if the answers were accurate. Delphina pushes everything to me in Slack: what's being asked, what's being answered. And when something needs correction, I can fix it immediately with a simple @ mention."

— Kevin Franklin, Analytics Manager

Today, Delphina handles daily ad-hoc data questions directly in Slack through conversational analytics.

Teams ask questions in plain language and receive accurate answers in seconds, complete with visualizations and full SQL for validation. The responses are trustworthy and relevant since Delphina's context layer learned Substack's specific business context: how they define metrics, which tables matter, and what edge cases to watch for.

Kevin credits this breakthrough to Delphina's transparency and ability to see every question and answer. When something needs correction, they can update the context layer with a simple @delphina/knowledge mention (even right in Slack!) — no pull requests required.

This delivers value in three key ways:

• Business users get self-service without waiting in queue — and because answers come fast, more people are asking more questions.
• The data team maintains oversight with full visibility and easy corrections, continuously improving accuracy over time.
• The data team accelerates their own work — Kevin now kicks off multiple questions in Delphina simultaneously, using the answers as starting points for deeper analysis and moving faster through complex, strategic work.

"Delphina saves us each at least 10 hours per week on ad-hoc questions," Kevin says. "That's time we now spend on strategic analysis and building out our analytics function instead of being human query engines."

Transformation 2: Leadership gets instant insights, data team gains strategic visibility

"With Delphina, I can see what our leadership is asking, where their attention is, and be more proactive in digging into where their questions are leading."

— Kevin Franklin, Analytics Manager

Substack's leadership team is deeply data-driven and technically sophisticated. Executives leverage data to inform decisions, from high-level trends in dashboards to custom analyses built to answer specific strategic questions.

Now that leaders are using Delphina's Slack interface on a daily basis to run their own analyses, they get answers in seconds and can dig into complex, multi-level explorations without waiting for the data team. At the same time, Kevin gains real-time visibility into the questions leadership is asking.

That transparency creates value on both sides. Executives move faster with confidence. Kevin can provide context early, catch assumptions before they compound, and understand where executive attention is focused. Without that real-time collaboration, even sophisticated analyses might need review after the fact — potentially costing valuable time for leadership and requiring the data team to reconstruct work reactively.

With Delphina, the data team contributes strategically from the start: catching potential issues, offering relevant context, and anticipating the next question before it's asked. Executives gain speed and autonomy, and the data team deepens its role as proactive strategic partners.

Transformation 3: Slack collaboration accelerates company-wide data literacy

"Delphina has leveled up people's curiosity and intelligence around data. People think about the business through their own lens because of their role, but when they see the questions finance is asking, or support, or product — it educates them and gives them inspiration. There's such a low cost to asking a question now."

— Kevin Franklin, Analytics Manager

As more Substack teams adopted Delphina, Kevin discovered that the shared Slack workflow was shifting how people across the organization used data.

With questions visible in shared channels — along with answers, and full transparency into the analysis — teams are learning from each other in real-time. The customer success lead can see finance questions, product teams could learn from support queries, and engineers could see what metrics partnerships cared about.

Beyond having one dedicated Delphina channel, Kevin added the bot to half a dozen other channels across the company. Now, when someone's debugging a potential issue or evaluating a hypothesis, they can tag Delphina to pull data directly into the conversation — for example, asking how often a specific event was firing, and getting an instant answer.

"When people need some additional context, it's very easy for anyone to quickly add data to the discussion," Kevin says. "I'm watching more conversations become data-driven conversations."

The transparency also revealed what was possible. People who hadn't been asking questions because they assumed answers didn't exist suddenly discovered what data was available, and how easy it was to access through Delphina.

The result: data literacy rises, and questions become more informed and sophisticated over time. Cross-functional learning happens organically and knowledge compounds across the organization.

Looking forward: scaling impact, smarter automation, and customer-facing analytics

The data team is broadening how they use Delphina — implementing automated workflows for daily metric updates and anomaly detection. Meanwhile, the team itself is expanding, a testament to the value they're delivering. Kevin plans to grow the team over the next few months, as Substack continues investing in its data capabilities.

See what Delphina can do for your team

Substack's adoption of Delphina reflects what's possible when AI tools are paired with thoughtful data governance: broader access to insights, faster answers to common questions, and more time for the data team to focus on strategic work.

Ready to see how Delphina works for your team? Schedule a demo.